Cell power more important than distance

Coverage in the Star of the serious matters regarding public exposures to cell tower and similar radiation if much belated is nonetheless welcome.

But calling Oakville’s requirement of 200-metre setbacks “stringent” is seriously misleading. Distance from cell infrastructure is less the issue than power levels, which can be upped to compensate for distance. Moreover, due to antenna angling, 200m can often be the place of worst radiative exposures.

It is wrong to state that all municipalities “can do now is get their feelings off their chest — officially.” Through provincial delegation, they have jurisdiction over health. As indicated by reporter Noor Javed, Toronto Public Health even has its own policy of “prudent avoidance” dating back to its prior medical officer in the late 1990s, which dissents from federal guidelines.

If Toronto fails to enforce it broadly, it is not for lack of jurisdiction, but for political cowardice and failure to face the public and environmental health travesty that has beset us all. Who has noticed that it is right from the mass deployment of cell infrastructure around 1997, that the steady increase in public health care burden began? This has been established in more than one study (see for example the recent Drummond Report) as not being about an aging population.

And it is not all about power levels either, according to very much science. But insofar as it is, one important institution centred in Germany, Baubiologie (Building Biology), recommends public exposure limits to this radiation to some 1,000,000x lower than Toronto’s guideline, itself in dissent from Health Canada’s by a factor of 100. Who has not heard of public health travesties where despite science out there for decades, authorities badly lagged - eg asbestos, tobacco, lead, etc? This travesty of human abuse of the electromagnetic spectrum, exceeds all previous in scale and scope.

This ties in with the claim in the Saturday article about tiny percentages who suffer ‘electrosensitivity’. This obscures that manmade electromagnetic fields and radiation are better if dimly understood as potential universal bio-stressors for all creatures. Consider that scientific study has already connected insect (e.g. ants, bees, fruit flies) and tree decline to this radiation.

There is much more that is wrong or misleading about Ms Javed’s articles, despite apparent good intent to air something of this serious topic. Will The Star truly take the issue up with steady long-term in-depth coverage it deserves? Or is there too much risk in alienating some of its own sponsors?

One final thing that should be noted since it is happening right now, is the review of Health Canada’s updated Safety [sic] Code 6 by a scientific panel of the Royal Society of Canada. This panel is acknowledged by the Society itself as being biased, but it refuses to relent and reconstitute its panel despite loud protest from Canadian advocates.